Kandinsky at the Milwaukee Art Museum

The inner world of a great 20th-century modern artist

“Kandinsky: A Retrospective,” a joint
project of the Milwaukee Art Museum and Centre Pompidou in Paris, opens in
Milwaukee on June 5. The exhibition features works by Wassily Kandinsky (1886-1944)
and related artists from Munich’s Blaue Reiter group, the early 20th-century
circle of modernist painters that helped nurture Kandinsky’s vision.

The more than 100 paintings, watercolors,
prints and photographs in the retrospective include a selection from the different
periods of Kandinsky’s 40-year career in his Russian homeland as well as
Germany and France. Early landscape and village scenes reflect Kandinsky’s
interest in Russian fairy tales and folk art. Later on, Kandinsky became one of
the first to introduce abstraction into modern art. His imaginative, often
playful abstract images draw upon his own inner subjective life using bright
colors, geometric shapes and bold lines to express feelings and ideas. Even
today Kandinsky’s art continues to challenge the imaginations of viewers
accustomed to representational images focused on the external world.

Kandinsky’s remarkable accomplishments
have earned his art a place in major museums worldwide as well as in art
history. Currently his works are at the top of the art market. It may thus come
as a surprise to learn that Kandinsky did not decide to become an artist until
age 30. He made this decision after viewing Monet’s wheat stack paintings at an
Impressionist exhibition in Moscow in 1895. The following year he traveled to
Munich—then a rival to Paris as a cultural mecca—to study art.

Despite a late start, Kandinsky’s
presence at important art happenings in Europe and the U.S. attests to his
recognition as a major artist in his own time. He managed to exhibit not only
in Munich, but also in New York, London and Paris, the other leading centers
for the art world of that period.

Kandinsky’s art was represented
prominently in the important 1913 New York Armory Show that introduced modern
art to America. In 1916 Kandinsky visited the Dada Café in Zurich, and his Klänge Poems were read at the Cabaret Voltaire, the home of the
international Dada art movement. His 1922 appointment at the Bauhaus, a leading
academy of modern art, alongside major artists including Paul Klee and Walter
Gropius attests to his international standing. His paintings were shown in the
Venice Biennale of 1930, the most important international gathering of artists.

Not everyone during his time appreciated
the bold and original images that Kandinsky offered. The Russian
Constructivists preferred art that reflected the forms of machines of the
industrial revolution. They found his Expressionist images out of step with the
revolutionary spirit in Russia. Nevertheless, Kandinsky served in numerous cultural
posts in Russia between 1914 and 1921 including director of the Museum of
Painterly Culture and member of the Fine Arts Section of the People’s
Commissariat for Enlightenment.
He returned to Germany in 1922 to accept an appointment as professor at the
prestigious Bauhaus art school. In 1937 the Nazis condemned Kandinsky’s art as
decadent and destroyed 57 of his works along with art of other modern artists. He
moved to France in 1933 and continued to create until his death in 1944.

As a writer, Kandinsky contributed at
least two important works to art theory. Concerning
the Spiritual in Art (1911) and Point
and Line to Plane (1926) explained his ideas concerning the origin of art
in the inner life of the artist and the principles of visual composition. Both
remain important to the development of visual aesthetic theory.

Apart from his contributions as an artist
and theorist, Kandinsky served as a leader in arts and cultural organizations.
In addition to his cultural leadership positions in Russia, he was instrumental
in creating the Blaue Reiter group and served as founder and president of
various artists’ organizations.

Lectures at the Milwaukee Art Museum
throughout the exhibition, including a series of weekly Thursday noon sessions,
will provide visitors with opportunities to explore and appreciate the
importance of Kandinsky’s legacy. A handsome illustrated catalogue with essays
by MAM curator Brady Roberts and other scholars accompanies the exhibition. Works
in the exhibition are mainly from the Centre Pompidou and MAM’s Bradley
Collection, with additional works from the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Art
Institute of Chicago and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

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